The Deal (8 page)

The blood from their last victim,
that still continued to soak
into
the wood, was a perfect
example of why I thought that was the last thing that was going to
happen.

Sure enough, the young woman, still screaming,
was forced to lay down on the table. Her captors working quickly to
secure her arms and legs with the restraints built into the solid
wood.

I wanted to turn away before I bore witness to
her torture. No matter how high the bounty was, I had never
accepted any contract that involved the torture or killing of a
woman. I can’t really explain why, but it was just something that I
found deeply wrong.

Regardless of my moral
inclinations, the horror show in front of me was just getting
started. The taller of the two demons stood at the top of the
wooden torture device, its long bony fingers clasped together over
the woman’s forehead like a living
vice
but probably three times
stronger than any humans grip.

Meanwhile,
his partner had positioned
himself between the victims’ legs. I became almost mesmerized by
the scene as it unfolded. I watched as her chest rose and fell
rapidly due to her heart beat growing faster and faster. The pain
was coming, it was just a matter of time.

The red tipped demon performed a half squat so
its head was pretty much level with the woman’s vagina. Then it did
something that I wasn’t quite expecting. A long, thin tongue shot
out from between its bony jaws and buried itself inside her
body.

A few seconds later and its tongue, which
looked like a long piece of red rubber, darted back into its mouth
and it smacked its thin lips as if it was tasting her sex. Kind of
like the way a person may take a sample of a meal they have never
had before.

Beads of sweat rolled between the woman’s
breasts which only seemed to add to the feeling that I was about to
watch a forced porn session, but that would have been awesome
compared to what happened next.

The demon between her legs, satisfied with
what it had tasted, slammed its face into the woman’s vagina and
rather than stopping at that, it continued to push with all its
might.

Screams of agony filled the air and I could
clearly see the small ribs on the top of the demons head protrude
from the woman’s belly. It must have kept its head inside her for
what seemed like an eternity to me and probably much longer for the
poor soul it was inflicting all the pain on.

Eventually, the demon began to retract its
head, and I could feel my horror rise when I noticed it had part of
her intestine clamped between its jaws. Then there was a sickening
slopping sound as it yanked on the vital organ hard enough to pull
the rest of her intestines right out of her.

Both of the nightmare creatures
laughed in that strange gurgling sound as their victim convulsed
violently on the wooden torture table. What I thought was odd, was
that they both headed towards the door and back out to the
nightmare land they belonged to leaving their victim to suffer a
brutal
death,
not unlike the one I had dealt out to the young
thief in his own apartment.

‘
Fuck me that was gruesome. We
need to help her before they come back.’ I said and was about to
put a foot towards the brutalized woman until the monk made a point
that hit home like a slap to the face.

‘
There is no point Samuel. She is
condemned to spend her eternity here. There is no place you can
take her that will grant any kind of solace from her
punishment.’

I found it rather comforting that I could
always trust the spawn of Satan to be brutally honest even when
they didn’t have to be.

‘
What the Hell did that poor woman
do to deserve that?’ I asked the question without really expecting
any kind of answer, but the one that the monk offered up suddenly
made all the sympathy I had for her wash away.

‘
Over the space of ten
years,
she kidnapped various children, both
boys,
and girls, and
set fire to them while they were either tied to a pole, bed, or
something else that the child had no chance of getting away from.
She stood and watched as they screamed for their
mother's
comfort while they burned alive.’

‘
Maybe Hell is too good for some
people.’ I was speaking more to myself than anyone else, but the
monk seemed to feel quite chatty by this point. Maybe he was
starting to enjoy the company.

‘
What you just witnessed was only
a small part of what goes on here. Only one soul is fully equipped
to deal with it all, and right now I’m thankful he is not here.’
There was no room for guessing who that one soul was, his lord of
darkness, the
one,
and only Satan.

Back on the torture
table,
the twisted soul with the beautiful body had stopped
convulsing. Her chest continued to rise and fall steadily as her
glazed eyes stared blankly at the darkness of the ceiling above.
She wasn’t dead but you could bet your bottom dollar she was
wishing she was by that point.

Then a thought suddenly occurred
to me.
In fact,
it was more of a fleeting image of Lisa. A quick
flash of that lovely smile and those beautiful eye’s that had once
been so full of life before the flatbed crushed it out of
her.

‘
Was Lisa brought here?’ I asked,
quietly praying the answer would be anything but yes.

‘
You’re wife was not destined for
this part of the kingdom. She is in a place where no demon has a
hand in her punishment.’ Said the monk, beckoning me to follow
after him.

We continued walking towards the
same door the demons had entered the room by only a few minutes
ago. Somewhere in the
distance,
I could still hear that
horrible gurgling laughter. Just like everyone else I was expecting
to step out into
a
world
of raining fire and brimstone as we
crossed the threshold of the door and stepped outside.

Instead,
I found myself standing
on
a
deserted cobblestone street which was lined with crooked looking
buildings that I could not discern where either
houses
, stores
or simply just window dressing for
a world
that up until a few
days ago, I thought was purely just fantasy.

‘
I don’t understand what you
mean.’ I said, trying to adjust my eyes to the bright light of day
under the cold grey sky. ‘I thought all souls that ended up in this
kingdom as you call it, where punished for their wrong
doings?’

‘
They are. But not all of them
need the help of the
Grimoyle’s
to be reminded of the pain
they have inflicted on others. Some, like Lisa, only need to be
left alone where they will torment themselves until the end of all
time.’

This was becoming a much deeper conversation
than I had thought I was going to be able to have with the faceless
holy man. And to be perfectly honest I wasn’t entirely sure I was
ready yet to hear about my wife’s self-imposed
punishment.

Although there was still a nagging doubt that
her being here was really where she belonged. That could be in part
because I had always taken what Lisa had told me about her past as
being kosher. She was a kindergarten teacher when I met her, and
after much thought, I realized that I had never really gotten to
know anything else about her life before the time we
met.

I still found it hard to believe that she
could have done anything so bad that warranted an eternity of
damnation. Not my wife, the woman who would bring stray dogs home
for the night before trying to find a new home for them. It just
wasn’t in her blood to be bad. Me on the other hand. I deserved
this. I deserved to be in Hell for the countless people I had
killed just for the money and no other motive but the
money.

As much as I wanted to learn the truth about
my wife’s presence in Hell, I still got the sense that I shouldn’t
push too hard. I knew the horned one was most likely keeping tabs
on me, and the less I did to piss him off while I was not capable
of taking him in a fair fight, the better.

Someday I was going to have to
stand up to him, but
for now,
he was our master, my boss, my
soul reason for still being able to draw a breath on
Earth.

I decided to change the subject as we headed
along the narrow street which seemed to rise up briefly before
taking us on to a downhill slope.

‘
What are Grimoyle’s ?’ I asked,
noticing that there seemed to be no signs of life beyond the
windows of the buildings we passed. No shadows, no lights, and more
disturbingly no signs that they had ever been lived in, despite how
ancient the buildings looked.

‘
Grimoyle’s are the demon
creatures you witnessed torturing that lady you wanted to
save
before I put you wise to her past. They are powerful guardian
demons supplied by our master to help the overlords maintain their
control over each part of the kingdom they are allowed to rule.
They’re not the smartest of our lords’ creations but they have
enough intelligence to perform their duties without
failing.’

I tried to soak in what the big monk was
telling me as we continued down the cobblestone road which I
noticed was beginning to widen into a kind of village square. I
could see a fountain in the centre of the clearing, but I couldn’t
tell if water still flowed through it, or perhaps, since I was in
Hell, something a bit more gruesome like crimson blood.

Trying to remember all the
different names given to the
Hellspawn
was a task in of
itself for me, but I was trying to remember just in case there was
ever a pop quiz at the end of my deal with the devil.

‘
I’m assuming there are stronger
versions of these demons you call the Grimoyle’s?’ I asked,
noticing that as we neared the fountain, no liquid of any kind was
flowing through it. It looked like it had
run
dry centuries ago,
during a time when lack of water was the least of your day to day
worries.

‘
Yes. There are many different
types of creatures in Hell. Some have been specifically born from
the great fires to serve a well-defined purpose while others have
been born from the wickedness of men’s souls.’

The big monk came to a stop a few feet away
from the fountain. I followed his gaze as he looked beyond the
grotesque sculpture of screaming bodies meshed together, and at the
huge stone wall which barricaded the great hall from the rest of
what I assumed must be a village.

‘
Samuel, this is the point where I
must leave you. I am not able to protect you from this point
forward. However, if you can reach the Monastery with the scroll
you will be granted protection from anything in this
region.’

‘
Where is this monastery you are
talking about?’ I asked, actually feeling a little sad that we were
about to part ways. Somehow the big monk felt familiar. I couldn’t
put my finger on what it was about him that would stir up that kind
of emotion but there was definitely something about him that I had
encountered before.

I followed a long languid finger as it pointed
beyond the wall.

‘
It lays north beyond the great
hall. There is a secret passage below
Hermetia’s
chamber
which will get you there but again there is no promise of
protection unless you have that scroll.’

‘
I understand. And your promise to
help me break the
devil's
deal still stands if I bring
you what you want?’ I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to
back out once I turned up at his front door with a scroll that
could cause no end of chaos on Earth.

‘
I swear I will help you break
your deal. Now please hurry.
Hermetia
holds his counsel in
the throne room of the great hall around this time each day. If he
learns of Argol’s fire then he will not waste any time in
destroying the scroll.’ And with
that,
the monk disappeared
into a wisp of black smoke.

I was now on my own and suddenly I
felt very exposed. I had not noticed any signs of life on our
journey to this point in the town but suddenly I felt like
there
were
a million eyes on me. Watching, waiting and ready
to pounce in a heartbeat.

I started towards the huge wood
and metal doors which marked the entrance into the lawns of the
great hall. I noted that there was no way in Hell I was going to be
able to get those doors open by myself, and after frantically
searching around for some sort of hidden lever, I noticed that
there was a smaller service
door,
further along, about
twenty feet away from the main doors.

Feeling certain that it would be locked tight
when I reached it, I tried turning the handle on the door and was
pleasantly surprised to hear it click open.